HISD fares well in math, poorly in reading on national exam

Updated 1:26 pm, Wednesday, December 18, 2013

HISD students continue to struggle with reading while performing as well as or better than their peers in other big cities in math, according to national test results released Wednesday.

Reading scores for the district's fourth- and eighth-graders have stagnated for six years. In math, however, the middle-school students have made gains over time and rank well against their peers nationwide.

The results come from a battery of standardized exams, typically called the Nation's Report Card, that allow big urban districts that choose to participate to compare themselves across the country.

"We are pleased that we continue to perform at high levels in mathematics and are concerned about the flat-line trending of our literacy rates," said Dan Gohl, chief academic officer for the Houston Independent School District.

Gohl said he plans to present a revised plan for boosting reading skills to the school board in January. Schools across the district use numerous programs to teach reading, he said, and the quality appears to vary. The differences also may trouble students who transfer campuses mid-year.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress tests a sample of fourth- and eighth-graders across the country.

HISD's weakest spot was fourth-grade reading. This year, 19 percent of the district's fourth-graders were deemed proficient and more than half met basic skills. Houston bested the Dallas school district, but both did worse than the average large city, where 26 percent of fourth-graders were proficient in reading.

In math, nearly a third of the district's fourth-graders were proficient, about the same as the average large city.

In eighth-grade math, HISD ranked near the top of the 21 urban districts that participated.